Bruno Van der Linden

Optimal Redistributive Taxation with Both Extensive and Intensive Responses

We derive a general optimal income tax formula when individuals respond along both the intensive and extensive margins and when income effects can prevail. Individuals are heterogeneous across two dimensions: their skill and their disutility of participation. Prefer-ences over consumption and work effort can differ with respect to the level of skill, with only the Spence-Mirrlees condition being imposed. Employing a new tax perturbation approach that integrates the nonlinearity of the tax function into the behavioral elasticities, we derive a fairly mild condition for optimal marginal tax rates to be nonnegative everywhere. Numerical simulations using U.S. data confirm the mildness of our conditions. The extensive margin strongly reduces the level of optimal marginal tax rates.

On the optimality of search matching equilibrium when workers are risk averse

This paper revisits the normative properties of search-matching economies when homogeneous workers have concave utility functions and wages are bargained over. The optimal allocation of resources is characterized first when information is perfect and second when search effort is not observable. In the former case, employees should be unable to extract a rent. The optimal marginal tax rate is then 100%. As search effort becomes unobservable, an appropriate positive rent is needed and the optimal marginal tax rate is lower. Moreover, the pretax wage is lower in order to boost labor demand. Finally, in both cases, nonlinear income taxation is a key complement to unemployment insurance.

Employment Subsidies and Substitutable Skills: An Equilibrium Matching Approach

The search-matching model is well suited for an equilibrium evaluation of labor market policies. When those policies are targeted on some groups, the usual juxtaposition of labor markets is however a shortcoming. There is a need for a setting where workers’ productivity depends on employment levels in all markets. This paper provides such a theoretical setting. We first develop a streamlined model and then show that it can be extended to deal with interactions among various labor market and fiscal policies. Simulation results focus on the effects of employment subsidies and in-work benefits and on their interactions with the profile of unemployment benefits and with active labor market programs.

Labor Market Policies and Equilibrium Employment: Theory and Application for Belgium

This paper is concerned with the general equilibrium effects of active labor market programs and the unemployment insurance system (the replacement ratio and the level of sanctions). It develops an equilibrium job matching model where active programs and the rate of sanctions have an amiguous impact on the equilibrium employment rate. The model is simulated for Belgium. The simulations suggest that passive and active labor market policies do not have a substantial net impact on the employment rate.

On Labour Market Policies and Aggregate Unemployment Outflows

This paper is interested in the modelling of the relationship between active and passive labour market policies and the aggregate unemployment outflow rate. Our model is based on a matching function and includes a simple representation of the competition between various groups of job searchers. The empirical analysis uses Belgian data. Faced with variables that are often integrated of order 1 according to the usual tests but which cannot strictly speaking be integrated, we contribute to an important methodological debate by comparing the conclusions of a classical econometric analysis and a cointegration approach.

Is basic income a cure for unemployment in unionized economies ? A general equilibrium analysis

This paper deals with the effect of basic income schemes on the equilibrium unemployment rate. It develops a dynamic general equilibrium model of a unionized economy where the budget of the State has to be balanced in each period. Compared to a benchmark situation with an unemployent insurance, it is shown that appropriately defined basic income schemes lower the steady-state unemployment rate. Moreover, the dynamic adjustment induced by such reforms can be Pareto-improving.

Embeddedness, cooperation and popular-economy firms in the informal sector

This paper is motivated by empirical observations on popular-economy firms (PEFs) in the informal sector of Santiago de Chile. These are labor-managed firms embedded in popular milieu where cooperation between their members plays a central role. This paper develops a (partial equilibrium) microeconomic theory of PEFs. First, it endogeneizes the level of cooperation between the workers. Second, it develops a static and a dynamic model to analyze whether embeddedness influences the behavior of the PEF. Embeddedness is assumed to be captured by three different characteristics suggested by the empirical observations. Most of them influence the employment and income levels in the PEF.

Imperfect Monitoring of Job Search: Structural Estimation and Policy Design

We build and estimate a nonstationary structural job search model that incorporates the main stylized features of a typical job search monitoring scheme in unemployment insurance (UI) and acknowledges that search effort and requirements are measured imperfectly. On the basis of Belgian data, monitoring is found to affect search behavior only weakly because assessments were scheduled late and infrequently, the monitoring technology was not sufficiently precise, and lenient Belgian UI results in caseloads that are less responsive to incentives than elsewhere. Simulations show how changing the aforementioned design features can enhance effectiveness and that precise monitoring is key in this.